If you open the way and provide a mechanism for people to contact you, they're going to call. And that's a good thing. We want to de-stigmatize mental illness. We don't want to hide them away or wait until they break the law.

That will help us (to) transition people out of the hospital and into the community.

All of the evidence that we have says that the beaches are as safe now as they were before the sewage spill.

It's important for us as the western door of America to be as prepared as we can, to help protect not only our people here in Hawaii but the nation.

We are very concerned in Hawaii about the fact we are the western doorway to the United States. We see a large number of visitors ... and a good proportion of them are from the Far East where we know a good number of emerging diseases are originating.

We are disappointed that the court did not acknowledge the many successes that we have had in the last several months.